Zeichner Economic performance is more Bristol City than Manchester City

THIS week, Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out how Labour will run the economy.

Economic lectures are generally pretty dry stuff – but this one really mattered because if Labour wins the election, it will impact the pound in your pocket.

We have all been made worse off over the last few years by the chaotic Conservatives – this is the start of clearing up the mess, and putting the country on a sound footing

She began with a damning assessment of the current Government.

Since 2010, our economic performance has been in the bottom third among the 38 major economies.

That’s relegation from the Championship form for football watchers – more Bristol City than Manchester City! If the economy had grown at the average of those top league economies over the past decade, it would be £140bn larger today.

That’s equivalent to £5,000 per household and an additional £50 billion in tax revenues. Imagine – an extra £5k for your household.

But squandered by Conservative incompetence, which is why this is really important.

The last decade has been a massive missed opportunity, and to add insult to injury, the UK had to suffer ‘Rishi’s Recession’ – with the country going backwards from the end of last year.

That’s bad news for living standards, and today, the average British family is a massive twenty percent worse off than the average German family.

But Rachel Reeves also made it clear that it goes back beyond 2010. Solutions are not to be found in the past.

Generations of politicians, she said, have struggled to address long-standing economic problems.

Growth in the past has been shared too narrowly. Inequality has grown.

The message was clear – Labour’s plan for the economy would not be based on the 1980s nor the 2000s, but would instead be a strategy fit for the conditions of the 2020s.

The Shadow Chancellor called this plan ‘Securonomics’ – where growth is based on the security and prosperity of workers.

This feeds into Labour’s excellent New Deal for Working People, which would guarantee basic rights from day one of employment and ban zero-hour contracts.

She argued that one of the greatest economic threats in recent years is insecurity – it is the ‘age of insecurity’.

Without a secure foundation, people have been left in a state of constant worry. And I think we all recognise that!

She then set out Labour’s strategy for broad-based growth. This had three strands – stability, investment, and reform. Stability means fiscal rules, but understood differently to the Government. The Conservatives’ borrowing rule targets overall deficit and creates a clear motive to cut long-term investment for short-term gains.

Labour’s rules, on the other hand, would target day-to-day spending to get debt falling as a share of GDP over the medium term.

Fiscal rules do not mean a lack of investment, and indeed, Labour’s second strand for growth was just that – investing in Britain’s economy through the Green Prosperity Plan, a National Wealth Fund and the publicly-owned Great British Energy. Innovation would also be supported, which is great news for the Universities and innovators in and around Cambridge.

Research and Development funding cycles would be changed from threeyears to long-term ten-year budgets.

This would make meaningful partnerships with industry easier. Finally, Labour’s strategy would focus on reform – of our planning system, public services, labour market and system of government.

This would unlock housing and infrastructure, devolve power out of Westminster to local communities and attack the roots of regional inequalities.

She was open about the challenges facing the country. Of course, the circumstances facing the Government that wins the next election are not rosy.

We can thank Liz Truss’s disastrous Mini-Budget, the Government’s dodgy Brexit deal, and the whirlwind of five Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors in just 14 years for that.

Since 2010 we’ve had twelve plans for growth – they’ve changed tack nearly every year! But that’s why Labour’s emphasis on a decade of national renewal is so important.

We’ve seen the damage of short-termism – a government frank about the challenges we need to overcome and the long-term plan we need will be a refreshing change.

As the Shadow Chancellor wrapped up her lecture, I felt optimistic. That speech should be welcome to people across the country, particularly those who have felt the economy hasn’t worked for them for many years.

For Labour, for the economy to work, it needs to work for all.